


To the Stars and back, until we find each other again

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Reaper76 [76]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Cat/Human Hybrids, Character Death, Death, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, Kitty! Jack, Love, M/M, Old Age, Old Married Couple, Past Relationship(s), Vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: I love you. Had he ever said it enough? They’d had a lifetime. Two, really, because who could have foreseen this second chance that they had been given. But with loss looming, and Jack in his arms, was that enough?
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: Reaper76 [76]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188655
Comments: 11
Kudos: 42





	To the Stars and back, until we find each other again

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that if you want to talk to me about my fics and writing, or anime/shows/games in general then you can now find me on discord [The Unholy Trinity](https://discord.gg/jdpcfy6XTB).

Jack was missing.

Usually, Gabriel wouldn’t have been too worried about this because Jack was more than capable of taking care of himself. Old age and the fading of the SEP enhancements might have slowed him down, but those gaps were filled by experience, and the stubbornness that Gabriel was sure was the main reason that the other man had survived so much. Although Jack would probably say the same about him. So, he wasn’t too worried that someone could have hurt his partner, especially as the Talon threat was all but gone these days. It also wasn’t the first time that Jack had wandered off since their return to the Watchpoint, or even since their quasi-retirement – Fareeha insisted that they were retired, but never stopped them from sneaking out into the field – and while those disappearances had made him uneasy, Jack had always come home a few days later.

No, what had him on edge this time, was that Jack had been quiet for the last week or so. Not that he was ever particularly loud. The gregarious man that he had fallen in love with all those years ago in SEP, had been worn by war, betrayal and loss, and while he had found quiet contentment in the life, they shared now, that wearing and tearing on his soul was there for all to see. But there had been something different about the quiet this time. He still couldn’t put his finger on it, but it needled at him as he paced around their quarters, unable to settle in the rooms that never felt quite like home without Jack present. Even though his presence was written across the room in the silver fur that covered the sofa, the lopsided scratching post in the corner – a valentines gift that had nearly seen Gabriel banished to the sofa before Jack had relented in the face of the nostalgia the gift had given him.

It was that sofa that he headed too now, aching muscles protesting at the pacing. For all that they could still fight and take more than many of the younger agents that made up the New Overwatch these days, age could no longer be ignored, and even his nanites were scant protection against the aches and pains that came with it. The best antidote was Jack curling up with him, head usually in his lap, demanding to have his ears scratched, tail wrapped possessively around Gabriel’s wrist or ankle, until they both fell asleep like that, Jack’s warmth a balm against the nanite-induced cold. He missed that now, finding his hand in his lap out of reflex more than anything, and his fingers curled into a fist.

_Jack…_

Now, that he thought about it, it wasn’t only that Jack had been quiet for the last few weeks. He had also retreated, and it was only as he glanced down at his empty lap that he realised that he couldn’t recall the last time his husband had come and sprawled in his lap. Oh, they’d still slept curled around one another, one following whenever the other shifted across the bed, a product of the long years apart. But apart from a couple of occasions, he couldn’t remember any instances of casual contact, and the worried frown he’d worn since waking yet again to an empty bed deepened. _What was going on?_ If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that they’d regressed to the cautious baby steps of their relationship when they’d first reunited and Gabriel had joined Overwatch. Back then it had been rare of Jack to welcome touch, let alone initiate it, but that wariness had faded away with the years, and it was unsettling to think that it might be creeping back into their relationship.

Especially as Gabriel couldn’t think of any reason for it to creep back in now, and he leant forward, burying his head in his hands, as he cast his mind back for the moment when things had changed. It was hard to pinpoint. Jack had been his usual grumpy self at their anniversary meal a couple of months ago, which had done little to hide his joy at being surrounded by friends and family, even with the absence of lost ones. Their weekend away – a gift from Fareeha that they both suspected was meant to show them the pleasures of retiring somewhere safe and warm, had been a pleasant break, although they’d both missed the familiarity of the Watchpoint. There had been no more nightmares than usual, and the worst of those had been Gabriel’s, rousing both as his body had come undone at the scenes, the few beans that had already been separate shrieking an alarm. That had undoubtedly unsettled Jack, old guilt creeping back into his eyes as he held Gabriel close for the rest of the night and hovered at his side for the next day or so, but they had easily found their way back to normal.

Had he missed something?

Back in those early days, he had missed far too many signs, having forgotten how to read the signs that Jack gave off for those that knew how to look. That had hurt more than the long years apart because even when he had been at his worst and convinced that he hated Jack, he had still been sure that he could read the other man. It had been his advantage in their fights, always knowing what Jack was going to do before he could do it, although, in the end, Jack had managed to surprise him more than once. But coming back together had erased that certainty, leaving him floundering and uncertain, and it had taken a long time to get back to the easy rhythm that he remembered from before the Fall. But they had found a new pattern. A new normal that had suited them both.

Or at least he thought they had.

Growling under his breath and feeling parts of his body losing form as his frustration grew, he squeezed his eyes shut. What was he missing? He didn’t like the idea that he had missed something important, because it was too close to what had happened before, something that he had promised Jack would never happen again. He’d promised himself too because while it hadn’t been the only issue that had driven them apart, it had undoubtedly contributed and he’d lost Jack once, he wasn’t going to lose him again, shivering as he remembered the moment when he’d first believe that Jack was gone.

The pain.

The fury and guilt.

The feeling of being lost in his own life.

Gabriel stiffened. That was it. That was the feeling that the quiet that had draped itself over them over the last few weeks was, the same, creeping silence that had swept over the world when he’d opened his eyes under Zurich and found no trace of Jack, even though he knew the other man had fallen into the depths with him.

The soft whispering promise of a loss that he wasn’t prepared to face.

“Athena, is Jack on the base?” He demanded as he climbed to his feet, already heading for the door as he waited for her response. He didn’t like asking. Before it had always been an unspoken gesture of truth that he would wait for Jack to come back to him and if he was wrong, he hoped that Jack would forgive him for his weakness. If not, he would take sleeping on the sofa for however long his husband deemed necessary with as much grace as his aching bones would allow because it would be worth it to ease the dread now gnawing at him.

 _“I have him exiting the perimeter first thing this morning,”_ Athena replied, and Gabriel faltered for a split second. Had Jack still been on the base? Had he been waiting for Gabriel to search for him? He wanted to ask, but then he focused on what Athena had said, and the dread became a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, an old memory stirring in the back of his mind.

_“Why did he run away from us?” Gabriel’s oldest sister was the one to ask the question that they were all thinking, her voice cracking as she sniffled, holding the younger two against her. Gabriel stood apart, eyes burning as he stared down at the too still form of their family cat, eyes locked on where the brindle fur should be rising and falling. Bramble wasn’t the first pet that they’d lost, and their mother and grandmother had always been careful to explain what had happened as best they could to ease the hurt, but this time was worse, as it came after three days of frantically searching for the cat that had been part of their lives from the moment they were born._

_It was his Grandmother who reached for him now, pulling him into a hug, as his mother did the same to his sisters. He didn’t fight the embrace, but he was still, unable to look away. Waiting for the answer to the question, feeling rather than seeing the look that the adults were sharing above their head before his mother spoke, voice soft. “He didn’t run away from you, sweetheart. Sometimes animals want to hide away when their time has come.”_

_“Why?” Gabriel finally spoke._

_“Because they feel safer that way,” his grandmother replied, fingers softly moving through his hair. “Or, maybe to try and spare you the pain of watching them fade away.” That isn’t right, Gabriel wanted to protest. It hurt more this way. To know that Bramble had been alone at the end, rather than curled up in his favourite patch of sunlight in the living room and surrounded by his family. But the words wouldn’t come, and as his sisters began to cry in earnest, he almost missed his grandmother asking if he understood. He didn’t reply beyond a shake of his head, his words trapped behind the lump that had risen in the back of his throat._

_No, he didn’t understand…_

Gabriel didn’t understand now either, or maybe he did, but the truth of it. The reality was too much for him to confront just yet, an echo of that lump rising in his throat now, and it took him a couple of attempts to get his voice working enough to ask Athena which way Jack had left the base. Although he already had an idea, one that was confirmed as the A.I. told him that Jack had slipped out at the back of the base. When she asked if she should raise the alarm, picking up on his worry and unease, he hesitated for a moment, knowing that there were many on this base that cared for his husband too. Many who would want to say… He shook his head, not ready to admit even in his own thoughts what was going to happen, and he wasn’t sure whether it was selfishness or a distant understanding that he wasn’t ready to admit, before telling her that he would handle it. The lie tasting like ash in his mouth, as he slipped out of their quarters, trying not to feel as though he was closing the door on something that he wasn’t ready to lose.

_Jack, I’m not ready…_

**

Gabriel had managed to slip out of the base undetected, something that he knew would have Fareeha tearing her hair out if she knew, but she wasn’t on base now, and he had more important things to worry about.

Clues that he had missed before bubbling up, as he headed for the one place other than their quarters that he knew Jack felt utterly safe. He had been so focused on them, their relationship, and the possible issues that might explain the quiet that he had missed the quieter, subtler signs of change. The fact that Jack who was usually the one pushing for them to be out in the field or on the training range, as restless in his old age as he had been when he was younger, hadn’t suggested it once in these last few weeks although he had gone when Gabriel had all but fled to the range after a bad night. Or the way their lie-ins, a well-deserved reward after a lifetime of little sleep had grown later and later, with Jack usually the last to wake. And the hushed conversation between Angela and Jack he had interrupted at the dinner, which he hadn’t caught any of and Jack had dismissed as the doctor once again trying to get them to actually take it easy and stop worrying her, but now his heart was telling him had been something more.

How could he have been so blind? After he’d promised not to look away again, and he hesitated at the top of the cliff. Was he making another mistake by coming here? If Jack had chosen to come here and be alone, rather than at home with him… _I don’t understand…_ He was that little boy again. He was the man trapped beneath ruins that were partly of his own making. Lost and angry and hurting. And it was that which made up his mind because he’d walked away from Jack once before. If you could call, his desperate crawl from beneath Zurich and the subsequent destruction and rebuilding of everything he had been and was, walking away.

He wasn’t making that mistake again.

He might not have known that Jack was still alive, or what he was going to lose by the path he had chosen back then, but he knew now, and he stepped up to the edge of the cliff, looking down at where the waves were crashing against the stone. _Forgive me for this Jack,_ he thought, before letting his body melt into shadow, disintegrating and reforming at the base of the cliff, nearly slipping on the water-slicked rock but managing to catch himself, even as the sea washed over his feet.

Steadying himself, he took a deep breath and turned. Here hidden from anyone on the cliff-top, and unknown to all but a trusted few was a narrow cave that wind and sea had carved into the rock over the years. He still had no idea how Jack had discovered this place, shivering with remembered terror as he recalled the first time, he had followed Jack out here and watched his husband disappear over the edge of the cliff. The argument that had followed had been one of their worst since reconciling, and it had only been weeks later when they had finally talked about it that Jack had shown him this little hideaway from the world, descending the cliff face with super-soldier strength, and a feline grace that hadn’t declined with age.

It felt like that moment again as he cautiously made his way across the rocks to the entrance, as though he was teetering on the edge of something new. Before it had been the thrill of being trusted with Jack’s secret, now it was dread… especially when there was no exasperated sigh, or warning hiss as he stepped inside, Jack’s usual indications that he wanted to be left alone. Jack was here though because the lights they had strung up high on the walls and carefully maintained against the wear and tear of the sea and wind were lit, bathing the glistening walls with a glow that was more eerie than warm today and part of him quailed, wanting nothing more than to turn and wraith back to the base and wait for Jack to come home like usual.

He didn’t.

Instead, he forced himself to step inside. Here the rocks were a little less slippery, but he was still cautious as he followed the narrow path that wove between glistening stalagmites, heading for the ledge nestled at the back of the cave.

There the lights seemed a little warmer, and for a moment as his gaze landed on the figure curled up on it, he could imagine that the age-bleached fur was the soft-gold that it had once been. The illusion shifted and broke as Jack stirred, ears and tail twitching as blue eyes blinked open, and as their gazes met, Gabriel’s heart splintered and broke, the truth he had been trying to deny written in the hazy gaze and the sorrow that twisted his husband’s expression at the sight of him.

“Jack…” 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Jack’s voice, always raspy these days was almost lost against the backdrop of the breeze and the water crashing against the rocks, but Gabriel didn’t need the words to know what he was thinking, and it propelled him forward. 

“Yes, I am,” Gabriel disagreed quietly as he closed the distance between them, eyes sweeping across his husband’s form, forcing himself to see him as he was. An old man, fur faded and thin in places, scars and ragged ears the physical evidence of everything he had survived. He was still beautiful. Blue eyes glistening as Jack pushed himself up, with more effort than it should have taken to make room for him, apparently realising his protests wouldn’t be listened to. Gabriel almost smiled at that – it had taken a lifetime for Jack to realise that he couldn’t out stubborn him, and he swallowed, humour fading as he slowly settled next to Jack.

A lifetime that was coming to an end far too soon.

“I told you, didn’t I? Together until the end,” he murmured, gently tugging Jack down into his lap, anything to stave off that inevitability. The problem was that when he’d made that promise, high on the realisation that they could still have something, that there was a way back from the darkness that had been consuming him, ‘the end’ had felt a million years away. Now, it was here, a chill that swirled around him as Jack slumped into him, tired and old. An enemy that he couldn’t fight, even as his fingers found their way to the ragged ears, gentle as he stroked them as Jack’s tail crept up to curl around his wrist, a moment of normality in the face of monumental change.

His words hung between them, unchallenged and unanswered. He knew that Jack was still with him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest – a little too ragged, a bit too slow – and the soft purring that met his ministrations, but he was beginning to think that his husband had fallen asleep. Almost hoping that he had, eyes burning as he thought it was the least the world owed Jack to let him go in peace, when Jack finally spoke again, pressing into his touch.

“I didn’t want you to see this…” Soft and apologetic. Defeat…no, not defeat Gabriel realised belatedly. Not, because this was a battle that Jack could never have won, or because he hadn’t tried to fight – the fact that they were here, still alive and still together was evidence of how hard Jack had fought – but, because Jack had accepted what was to come. “I’m…” Gabriel shook his head, cutting off the apology that he couldn’t bear to hear, understanding in a way that his younger self hadn’t been able to, knowing that if he had been in Jack’s place, he might have tried to spare him too. Just as he knew that Jack would have hunted him down, just as he had hunted down Jack.

“Together Jackie,” he murmured, making no effort to hide his grief. There would be no lies at this moment, shifting to wrap one arm around his husband, even as the other soothed the flickering ears as he caught the soft intake of breath as Jack turned his face to hide it against him. He wanted to hide too. To hide from what was going to happen, this looming loss. He’d endured it once if you could call it that, but he wasn’t sure that he could it again, and he was almost glad that Jack wasn’t looking at him at that moment, feeling his feature shifting, his body threatening to come undone under the weight of his emotions. “Jack…” He said once he was sure that his features were reasonably human – not that Jack had ever cared, ever gentle as he had explored Gabriel in all his forms. The tail on his wrist tightened, and then Jack was looking up at him, and the weariness in the beloved eyes had the burning in his eyes becoming a tickle as he gently, tenderly gathered his husband close, abandoning his ears in favour of pressing their foreheads together. “I love you.”

_I love you._

Had he ever said it enough? They’d had a lifetime. Two, really, because who could have foreseen this second chance that they had been given. From those days in SEPS where the words had slipped out, desperate and pleading, as they were torn apart from the inside out and rebuilt into something more, something less and more than human. Finding their strength and humanity in one another. To the heated exchanges before and after fights during the Crisis, relief and fear a constant companion, love a weakness that they held close, risking everything for one another. The glorious warmth and contentment of the golden years of Overwatch before the cracks had appeared, when life had been good, and for once there had been no desperation as they whispered the words each morning, sealed with kisses and gentle embraces. To the sharp, tangled thorns of their falling apart, love and anger undistinguishable at times and just as painful, even at that moment when the world had turned to fire and ash around them.

The words that he had whispered to Jack’s ghost in the moments when the Reaper had subsided, and he had allowed himself to remember what he’d loved and lost. The fury and hurt, and aching relief when he’d learned that Jack was still alive, fuelled by a love he’d thought long gone, burnt to a cinder with the world they’d tried to build and save. The slow dance of reconciliation, just as tangled and sharp as their falling out, wrapped in a bitterness fuelled by loneliness and loss. The warmth of finding home again, a flickering flame against the doubts and uncertainties as they worked to fill in those cracks that had torn them apart and dull the lingering thorns. The contentment of growing old together, love a more straightforward thing now and more precious than any accolade or victory.

To the morning, two days before when he had last woken with Jack wrapped in his arms, peaceful and content and welcoming his whispered ‘I love you’ and good morning kiss with a smile, that had reminded him of the man he had first fallen in love with.

The same smile that greeted him now as he pulled back to look at his husband. Soft and wondering, just as it had been the first time, he had said those words, seemingly untouched by everything that stretched between and behind them, and Gabriel had never loved him more than he had at that moment. Jack leant into him, practically falling against him even as he tilted his head up, nudging the underside of Gabriel’s chin, marking him as his own, as a purr rumbled in his chest. “To the stars and back…” Jack whispered, echoing the words they had exchanged on their wedding day, surrounded by their friends and family, invincible for a moment in their hopes and love, and the sob bubbled up before Gabriel could stop it, a soft, broken sound.

“And back again…” He finished, tilting his head to meet Jack’s lips halfway. Tender even as tears began to trickle down his cheeks, knowing that this would be their last kiss as he felt Jack’s tail loosening around his wrist, the purring quieting…a heartbeat fading beneath the distant beat of the sea on stone, and the breaking of his own.

_Until we find each other again…._


End file.
